Lopez, Sykes latest additions to late-night talk

DETAILS

“The Wanda Sykes Show”

When: Tomorrow, 11 p.m.

Where: KSWB/Channel 69 (Cable 5)

“Lopez Tonight”

When: Monday, 11 p.m.

Where: TBS

When “The Wanda Sykes Show” debuts on Fox tomorrow night, Sykes will be the first woman to host a late-night network talk show since Joan Rivers gave it a brief shot in 1986. And when George Lopez makes his talk-show debut Monday with “Lopez Tonight,” there will finally be a Latino in the late-night house.

It’s a brand-new day in late-night television, and if Lopez and Sykes do their jobs right, you won’t be sleeping through it.

“We’re going to bump up the energy,” Lopez said of his show, which will air Monday through Thursday on the TBS cable channel. “We’re going to bump up the music. We’re going to have a more diverse and more inclusive array of guests.

“The material might be a little edgier, it might be a little more political in some places. It might make some people happy, it might make some people unhappy. But why would you fall into a traditional talk show (format) when a traditional talk show isn’t doing well?”

With NBC’s prime-time Jay Leno experiment smelling a little like flop sweat, Conan O’Brien bringing fewer viewers to the “Tonight” show than Leno did, and David Letterman dealing with the fallout from Assistantgate, the late-night landscape isn’t the cushy, gated paradise it used to be. Which means there is more room for people who don’t want to do the same old thing, and more shows for people who don’t want to watch the same old thing.

Sykes’ show will feature an open bar for guests and an open-ended format that will include pretaped sketches, a monologue and “Real Time With Bill Maher”-style panel discussions that will have Sykes and her guests weighing in on pet peeves and hot-button issues.

“Everything I learned from being on Chris Rock’s show (which ran for three years on HBO) I’m bringing to my show,” Sykes said in an interview this week. “My mandate is, ‘Let’s be funny.’ More important, ‘Let’s be relevant.’ You will definitely get to hear my voice and get my sensibility.”

On “Lopez Tonight,” the stand-up comedian and sitcom star has plans for shaking up a format that he describes as “a little bit down and a little bit white.” Inspired by Arsenio Hall’s late-night talk show — which aired in syndication from 1989 to 1994 — Lopez is going for a loose, “street party” atmosphere. Sometimes the show will open with a monologue; other times it will open with a song by a musical guest or a performance by Lopez’s funky house band.

“The only thing you can really compare it to is what happened 20 years ago when Arsenio first started and created what was a party atmosphere and a show that looked different. The approach was different. yet it was inclusive and not divisive.”

“The current state of (network) late night is much like the current state of the economy,” Lopez said in a recent interview. “It’s a down, down time. And the people that are not watching aren’t particularly going to any other show. They’re just leaving late-night altogether.”